Prom 22 (19.08.21) - The BBC Singers & Shiva Feshareki

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Thursday 19 August 2021
Royal Albert Hall

Josquin des Prez: Qui habitat in adiutorio altissimi (a 24)
Thomas Tallis: Loquebantur variis linguis
Ken Burton: Many Are the Wonders
Hildegard von Bingen: O viridissima virga
Clément Janequin: Le chant des oiseaux
Bernard Hughes: Birdchant BBC commission: world première
Igor Stravinsky Tres sacrae cantiones – Illumina nos
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck: Je sens en moy une flamme nouvelle
Nico Muhly A New Flame (after Sweelinck) BBC commission: world première
William Byrd: Ave verum corpus
Roderick Williams: Ave verum corpus Re-imagined
Shiva Feshareki: Netherworld BBC commission: world première

Shiva Feshareki turntables/immersive electronics
Liam Byrne viola da gamba
BBC Singers
Sofi Jeannin conductor

Experimental composer and turntablist Shiva Feshareki joins Sofi Jeannin and the BBC Singers for a choral playlist colliding the Renaissance with the present day. Works by Hildegard of Bingen, Byrd and Josquin are woven into a continuous musical sequence with pieces by Stravinsky, Feshareki, Nico Muhly and Roderick Williams. Old and new, acoustic and electronic, sacred and secular come together in this musical kaleidoscope.

[jayne lee wilson]

Rather partial to plainchant, early choral music like Gesualdo and Monteverdi, and latterly various modern takes e.g. Rihm's In Umbra Mortis, this looks a very intriguing sequence.... especially with an accompaniment of turntables, electronics and viola da gamba....

One for the back of the room, feet up, drink and reading matter on the table......relax, press play, let it float around and just see what draws me in......

[edashtav]

Rather partial to plainchant, early choral music like Gesualdo and Monteverdi, and latterly various modern takes e.g. Rihm's In Umbra Mortis, this looks a very intriguing sequence.... especially with an accompaniment of turntables, electronics and viola da gamba....

One for the back of the room, feet up, drink and reading matter on the table......relax, press play, let it float around and just see what draws me in......

What a bran-tub of contemporary composers !
Frankly, I’m uneasy with the mix.

[pastoralguy]

Nice to hear the old music…

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Is this really the BBC Singers? I was squirming uncomfortably as the presenter repeated "BBC Singers" endlessly (it being, presumably, part of the required script). My main concern was of the likelihood of this esteemed group of singers sounding like Rhinemaidens under duress, with socially distanced choral blending. However, there has been a miraculous transformation within the sopranos, singing with an unwobbly purity of sound that I never thought I'd live to hear. The blending problem hasn't gone away, but that's more to do with some shaky tenors having an off day. Overall, I'm becoming surprisingly drawn into this concert.

[jayne lee wilson]

Its just a gorgeous sequence of lovely, ethereal sounds...... sacrligeous to even write these words in the heart of it...
What a strange and wonderful creature is a bass clarinet...a rich dark meld with the organ...

[Simon Biazeck]

Shiva Feshareki's 'Aetherworld' is the best thing in it. Stockhausen on speed and then some. I glimpsed this score early this week on a colleague's phone. A tour de force from all. BTW, the BBC Singers have sounded like this for the last few years. I've been trying to tell it out, but no one listens to me.

SBz.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Shiva Feshareki's 'Aetherworld' is the best thing in it. Stockhausen on speed and then some. I glimpsed this score early this week on a colleague's phone. A tour de force from all. BTW, the BBC Singers have sounded like this for the last few years. I've been trying to tell it out, but no one listens to me.

SBz.

I think they vary. They've shown real signs of reform in recent time, but then they slip back into their bad old ways from time to time. Tonight, with the reservation I've already expressed, they were superb.

[jayne lee wilson]

What an extraordinary, astounding, cosmic experience of a finale Shiva Feshareki's Aetherworld was....!

Concluding a sequence of many musics - choral, instrumental, electronic and birdsong - which I found easeful at times, fascinating and mesmerising at others, the works perfectly placed and spaced, it must have been a unique acoustic immersion in the hall. But it sounded pretty wonderful here with the volume wound up high!

(Those rugged power amps earned their keep in that one! How they all soared and caressed, my electronics carrying theirs across the aether.......)...

***
From the premiere of Schoenberg's Op.16 in 1912, to the riotous walk-out on Max Davies' Worldes Blis in 1969, this is innovative programming the Proms have been famous or infamous for....with Tuesday's wonders from the Manchester Collective, we need, as they say... "more like this"....

[Ein Heldenleben]

Shiva Feshareki's 'Aetherworld' is the best thing in it. Stockhausen on speed and then some. I glimpsed this score early this week on a colleague's phone. A tour de force from all. BTW, the BBC Singers have sounded like this for the last few years. I've been trying to tell it out, but no one listens to me.

SBz.

Sounds excellent. Looking forward to this - currently watching the Opera Gala on BBC FOUR .Currently there’s an embarrassment of vocal riches ..

[jayne lee wilson]

I've got Anthony Payne's Day in the Life of a Mayfly playing now..... the perfect wispy, delicate, frolicsome wind-down after the electrochoral grandeur......

[bluestateprommer]

This program put me in mind of the "Patchwork Passion" that Sofi Jeannin conducted with the BBC Singers and friends several years back, though obviously on a smaller scale here, at least in terms of running time. This was a well done concert, with some swings and roundabouts with the newer works, but nicely assembled. And speaking of SJ, perhaps the changes perceived by Forumites in the last few years with the BBC Singers might just have a teeny little bit to do with their current chief conductor, perhaps :) .

[Simon Biazeck]

I think they vary. They've shown real signs of reform in recent times, but then they slip back into their bad old ways from time to time. Tonight, with the reservation I've already expressed, they were superb.

The sound changed some years ago, particularly on the top line. I have sung with them many times and each conductor gets the sound they want. For what it's worth, I didn't care for the conductor's interpretations of the ancient music but I do like detail in polyphony, so what you might call "bad old ways", I may not always see as a problem. Balance and blend are quite different things in my book. Thank heaven they don't sound like Brand Bland (painfully straight mimsy); never have and never will!! Chacun à son goût, eh?!

[Simon Biazeck]

Sounds excellent. Looking forward to this - currently watching the Opera Gala on BBC FOUR .Currently there’s an embarrassment of vocal riches ..

Damn, I missed that! Thanks for the reminder.

[Simon Biazeck]

This program put me in mind of the "Patchwork Passion" that Sofi Jeannin conducted with the BBC Singers and friends several years back, though obviously on a smaller scale here, at least in terms of running time. This was a well-done concert, with some swings and roundabouts with the newer works, but nicely assembled. And speaking of SJ, perhaps the changes perceived by Forumites in the last few years with the BBC Singers might just have a teeny little bit to do with their current chief conductor, perhaps :).

Évidemment!